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Article: DREAM FLIGHT NEARS LIFTOFF TEST PILOT TAXIS TOWARD RECORD BOOK WITH FLAPPING WINGS
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- March 20, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2001 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Patricia Jones-Bowman believes she can fly like a dinosaur.
In May, Jones-Bowman will climb behind the controls of an
"ornithopter," a machine designed to carry a person aloft with
flapping wings that mimic a bird, a bat, or a pterodactyl. In its
last round of testing, the craft, which looks like a plane minus the
propeller, was able to hit 56 miles per hour and come tantalizingly
close to liftoff on a Toronto runway.
Engineers have built machines that can fly people through the
sound barrier, over mountains and across continents, or even to the
moon and back. But the University of Toronto's ornithopter is the
closest anyone has come to fulfilling the oldest dream of aviation:
to rise from ...